The Washington Times recalls that shameful time in American history:
"Had the United States fought North Vietnam as it had any other enemy in its history, the conflict would have been settled speedily. However, fear of escalation and Chinese intervention caused Johnson to severely limit the use of force against the North. He chose to fight the war on unfavorable terms in the South, which was a long-term recipe for failure; nevertheless, the United States and South Vietnamese armed forces foiled every North Vietnamese attack. The 1968 Tet Offensive, the last-ditch attempt to achieve a communist victory, was a historic military defeat for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, which a demoralized U.S. government and skeptical press turned into an American political defeat....
...America's betrayal of South Vietnam has been an inspiration to foreign insurgents and domestic activists and politicians who have sought to replicate it whenever U.S. forces have been deployed abroad. U.S. military might is only as strong as the politicians who stand behind it. The lesson for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is that America will prevail with strong will and determined leadership. A disgrace like April 1975 must never happen again."
Yet even today, there remains an obnoxious insistence in revising the historical truth about the undermining of the war effort, and the resulting hell that produced millions of death and unmeasurable misery and suffering for the people of Southeast Asia.
There exists those who insist on writing the outrageous lies about that era in order to promote their modern day agenda of a sissified, emasculated, and properly punished America among the world community. These people are among worst kind of arrogant and obnoxious jerks we suffer from today. Several of those cretins participate in our local blahgosphere from time to time, and have repeated their disproved canards about the Viet Nam era shamelessly.
I will never let these people go unchallenged when they openly spew their ugly and dogmatic propaganda about Viet Nam.
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David Horowiz:" And in America you have to understand that the left that you see out there, which is opposing the Iraq war and, you know, getting upset about prisoners in Guantanamo is the same left that supported the Soviet Union. The Cold War, wanted us to lose the Cold War. They didn't go away. When communism collapsed, and it collapsed because with the crackpot economist that just got it wrong, it was a bankrupted system. But when it collapsed, their attitude was, oh, good, now we don't have to defend this anymore. We'll just go on attacking capitalism, American democracy as the great Satan and continue on our way. And that's really what's happened. These people never looked back. You know, you would think that people who went through the Vietnam War, I was a -- you know, I was one of the leaders of the antiwar left and the largest magazine of the left, Ramparts. And then when the war ended, when America left and the communists proceeded to slaughter 2 1/2 million people in Cambodia and Vietnam, I had second thoughts. I said, you know, Nixon was right: There was going to be a bloodbath if the communists won, and we were wrong and we helped make this bloodbath possible. "
ReplyDeleteFred Gregory
Nixon was right.
ReplyDeleteWatch "The Killing Fields" for an excellent education on how to cause millions of deaths because you let the left-wing media browbeat you into bad choices.
The media lost that war.
And if it wasn't for the big brass cojones on Pres. Bush the lefties would have forced us to lose Iraq, as well. Instead, we prevailed and beat AQ.
Afghanistan is a different matter. Obama's Rules had handcuffed the military almost to the point of ineffectiveness. Obama is trying to win this war by spreading US tax dollars on the ground in front of every Afghani to try and buy his love. It ain't working.
Obama's rules of engagement are the same as those of LBJ, "don't fire unless fired upon" and in case you don't know the end of that story I will tell you... Lots of body bags! The same, unfortunately will occur in Afghanistan if those rules are adhered to by the commanders in charge of those on the ground.
ReplyDeleteCurrent ROE is MUCH different than in Vietnam:
ReplyDeleteIf he’s just walking with a gun you can’t shoot at him.
If he’s just standing still with a gun you can’t shoot him.
If he shoots and then points the gun away from you, you can’t shoot at him unless/until he points the gun at you again.
If he shoots at you and puts the gun down, you can’t shoot at him.
If he shoots at you and puts the gun down, and then runs to another gun and picks it up and shoots at you, you can only shoot back while he’s actually shooting at you. You cannot shoot while he’s running between guns preparing to shoot at you again.
If he hides in a house you can’t shoot at him.
If he hides in a store you can’t shoot at him.
If he hides in a livestock pen you can’t shoot at him.
If he hides in a mosque you can’t shoot at him.
If there are any non-shooting people near him while he’s shooting at you then you can’t shoot at him.
If there are any vehicles near him while he’s shooting at you then you can’t shoot at him.
If there is any livestock near him while he’s shooting at you then you can’t shoot at him.
If it’s dark and you can’t positively identify him then you can’t shoot at him.
Basically, you can only shoot the enemy when he’s standing in the middle of a large, open, otherwise isolated, undeveloped area with nothing around him and he’s actually shooting at you or pointing a gun and you and waiting for you to shoot him.
Otherwise, it’s a no-go.
From an intelligence report 30 Mar 2010:
“Coalition and ANSF refrained from active engagements with the enemy during the reporting period following claims of civilian casualties caused by ISAF rocket fire earlier, thus allowing insurgents to have an upper hand. Insurgents capitalized on this and conducted several complex attacks against well protected CF bases and convoys.”